A Clear Eye from the Pig Sty 2009

Hey, folks!

New video here of Lou Hesse, Executive Director, Augsburg Lutheran Churches and former member of the ELCA's Task Force on Human Sexuality--the one who stood before the 2005 church-wide assembly to present a confessional, traditional, and dissenting view, addresses the 9th Annual Convention of the Augsburg Lutheran Churches at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in El Paso, TX. There are four parts to the video.

More on "Repentance"

Was repentance assumed as a necessary component in "the Keys" at least as early as 1547.

This from an article in the online archives of "Logia." (accessed 08-26-2009)

http://www.logia.org/features/feature182.pdf

"If this is indeed so, as Regin Prenter says, that the divine
service is the place of justification, then justification has found
its artistic expression in St. Mary’s Church at Wittenberg. I am
thinking here of the altarpiece by Lucas Cranach, which actually
consists of four pictures.
At the center is the picture of the institution of the Lord’s
Supper. One of the participants is Martin Luther, the man with
the beard who receives the chalice. ŠThis is how Luther looked
when he — safe from his opponents — lived in Wartburg Castle
as Junker Georg. It is no accident that it is he who receives the
chalice. After all, Luther, like Jan Huss a century earlier, had
given the people not only the bread but also the chalice.
On the lefthand side, we see how Melanchthon baptizes a
child, with Cranach himself as a sponsor. It is remarkable that
Melanchthon baptizes, because he was not ordained. On the
right-hand side, Johannes Bugenhagen, the congregation’s pastor,
uses the keys of the kingdom of heaven. On the one side is
a penitent man who kneels; on the other side is an impenitent
man who turns away from him in anger.
Bearing the altarpiece, in the predella, we see Luther preaching
to his congregation to which belong, among others, Luther’s
wife, Catharine; his daughter, Magdalena; and his son, Hans.

The content of the sermon is Christ crucified."

God’s Smile
Worship as Source of Christian Life
Carl Axel Aurelius
Translated by Holger Sonntag

I don't necessarily see this as a "withholding" of forgiveness. More likely the "impenitent man" did not hear the "for you"-ness of the absolution. Still... One can easily understand how eagerly the institutional church would take up this "power" and use it manipulatively.

Furthermore;

1) The declaration of forgiveness to UNREPENTANT SINNERS is ABSOLUTELY necessary. Otherwise, no one would get to hear it and preachers would never get to declare it.

2) The Gospel itself--that is the forgiveness of sins FOR THE UNWORTHY (especially the unrepentant)--works repentance because it is THE WORD that puts sinners to death and raises saints to new life.

3) Such repentance is not the "contrition" which sinners FEEL, but is the actual death of the sinner's aspirations to "storm" heaven with right feelings, right thoughts, and right deeds. Physical death of the mortal flesh finally repents us for good and we cannot "help" ourselves any longer but must simply wait upon God's Word.

4) To declare forgiveness only to the "believing" is to practice the very un-Lutheran doctrine of Limited Atonement.

5) The paradoxical "both/and"--ness of the simul must be maintained. While the sinner may actual "feel" sorry and improve behavior, the saint has already been "taken up" into God with with Christ awaiting revelation in the New Creation.

6) Remembering the the two kinds of righteousness allows for declaring the saint "divinely righteous for Christ's sake," while visiting the necessity of "civil righteousness"--and the consequences of violation--upon the sinner penitent or not.

Remember Mt. 18

The Law can only go so far. After repeated attempts to garner "repentance" from the sinner, the ultimate answer is to "treat them like tax collectors and sinners." And what did Jesus DO with tax collectors and sinners? He ate with them! He DIED for them! Absolution is finally the answer, even to "absolute" refusal.

Any group whether institutional or not has requirements for membership, some qualities that "define" who's in and who's out of the group. Otherwise it wouldn't be a "group." The challenge to the group comes from a member's "violation" of those requirements. If such violation is allowed to stand, the "viability" of the group is threatened. The challenge to individual member is imposed by the authority of the group when the requirements are violated. Submission to such authority may threaten the life of the individual. This is our predicament "under the Law:" left unenforced, it leads to the "group's" death, enforced totally it leads to the individual's end. The Law can only end in DEATH.

We left then with a paradoxical corollary to Luther's definition of a Christian as "free Lord, AND bound servant." The corollary can be stated thusly: "The individual so forgives the group's enforcement of authority that the individual risks death at the hands of the group. AND... The group so forgives the individual's violation that the group itself risks dissolution (death) from the hands of the violator."

Here we have the paradoxical reign of "justice and mercy," God's two-fisted rule over creation by which he "loves" it. Neither justice or mercy can "rule" alone, their tension must be maintained lest we fall into the tyranny of Nomianism or the tyranny of an Anti-nomian anarchy.

Finally, we must ask ourselves: Does our salvation finally rest on our righteousness according to law which we are able to obey now that we "have" Christ? Or... Does our salvation rest on "CHRIST ALONE?" The first turns us back on ourselves (in curvatus se) to wonder about our "obedience" while the second "straightens" us up (justification) so that we can "behold" our salvation in Christ. Alternatively... Does our salvation rest upon the Word Alone and our hearing of it; or does it rest upon the "fruits" which the Word produces. Faith in Christ means, not only "trusting" in him for salvation but also "trusting" that he will bring about the fruits of such salvation--whether we can SEE them or not (Hebrews 11)--faith is NOT sight!

Tim

NO Repentance Demanded!

Now I know where the reason for the devotion to "repentance" comes from in Lutheran circles (Hat Tip: Kris Baudler on the Applied Theology List Serve)

The opening paragraph of Missouri's (Reu's) "Office of the Keys" reads:

"What is the Office of the Keys?

The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent."

Matthew reads:
"19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

No demand for repentance there. Jesus is giving them the kingdom and telling them that the "Word" they will preach will be an effective and powerful word--literally the "Word of God!" cf. Is 55. Whatever PROMISES they bind to people on earth have been, are, and will be the promises kept in heaven. This is the Gospel that delivers faith. Whatever SIN/LAW/COMMANDS they free people from on earth have been, are, and will be the very same ones they are "loosed" from in heaven. This, too, is the Gospel that delivers faith. Therefore, faith is the only KEY necessary for the kingdom.

Likewise John reads:
23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

No demand for repentance there. Jesus is telling them of the necessity of preaching. The "Good News of "forgiveness" must be delivered personally. cf. Romans 10. Again, this is an effective Word in that when the absolution is declared to someone, his sins are actually and truly forgiven. However, if that forgiveness is NOT delivered personally, that is, not preached "for you," then how is the "one who has never heard" to know that they are forgiven? In such a case, from the unhearing one's perspective, they are not forgiven.

The kingdom depends solely upon the delivery of Christ by a preacher so that hearers may have "faith in Christ" as the Holy Spirit "calls, gathers, enlightens..."

The demand for "visible" repentance is yet another venue of religious manipulation.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

12^th Sunday after Pentecost

Gospel: John 6:56-69

Sunday, August 23, 2009

In verse 56, Jesus says, “He who eats my flesh and eats my blood abides in me, and I in him.” Further on he says, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (6:63).

At first glance one might think that Jesus is contradicting himself. The flesh avails in eating his flesh and then the flesh doesn’t avail. But Jesus is not speaking of the same flesh. In the first statement he is referring to himself, his flesh and blood. In the second comment he is referring to our flesh. This brings to mind his comment to Nicodemus back in the third chapter of John’s Gospel. In speaking of the new life which is ours in Christ he says one must be born again of water and the spirit (a reference to water baptism where one is united with Christ in his death so we die, and where we are given Christ to be the new life in us.) In that dialogue Jesus says “that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit” (3:6).

Christ abides in us. Communion is a sign and seal of his life in us. Our flesh is of no avail. That is, our effort, our struggle, to do the good and avoid evil accomplishes nothing but to make matters worse. As our brother Paul wrote, “the good that I would I do not. The evil that I would not that I do” (Romans 7). Further he declares that the law came to increase sin (Romans 5). The end result of the Law is to put us to death, so that CHRIST IS THE LIFE IN US. “…the words I have spoken to you are SPIRIT AND LIFE” (6:63).

That we can do nothing toward God is amplified by Christ in his comment that even abiding in Christ is NOT OUR DOING. In verse 65, he says, “…I told you that NO ONE can COME to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

The question can be asked, if we cannot do the good then how is the Christian life to come about? Jesus addresses that himself in his “abiding” comment addressed to his disciples in the upper room on the eve of his death on the cross. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him, he it is that BEARS MUCH FRUIT for apart from me YOU CAN DO NOTHING” (15:5)! Our brother Paul put it this way, “God has done what the LAW weakened by the FLESH could not do; sending his Son in the likeness of Sin and for sin condemned sin the flesh IN ORDER that the just requirements of the LAW might be fulfilled in us who walk NOT according to the FLESH but according to the SPIRIT” (Romans 8:4)!

The Christian life is NOT about you and me; it is about CHRIST alone! As Brother Martin Luther wrote, one thing is enjoined upon the Christian: that each day he remind himself of his baptism, that therein he died with Christ and now Christ is the life in him (from “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church). EVERYTHING STEMS from our baptism. In Him is life abundant and fruit abundant.

©Dick Smith

The Need to Be Right

The Reverend Lenae Rasmussen preaches at the second night worship service at the 9th Annual Convention of the Augsburg Lutheran Churches at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in El Paso, TX

"The end of Free Will is the beginning of Faith."

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Sunday, August 9, 2009

9^th Sunday after Pentecost

From an old sinner for whom Christ Died.

Gospel: John 6:35, 41-5

“Jesus said to them; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (verse 35)…”No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day” (verse 44).

There is NO FREEDOM OF CHOICE here; NO FREE WILL. The Father will draw the person otherwise it won’t happen. All the invitations in the world by preachers to come to Jesus fall flat and accomplish NOTHING because Jesus says it simply can’t happen that way.

God does the choosing. It is out of our hands. It is in his hands ONLY.

SO where does that put you and me? Are we excluded or included?

The answer is found only in an outside Word that comes to us. “FAITH comes by hearing and hearing by the preaching of CHRIST” (Romans 10). Paul therefore writes, “As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news’” (Romans 10:15). They come, not on their own free will, (because there is no free will), but because they have been sent.

They are sent to speak the Word: “YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN FOR JESUS’ SAKE!” And where there is forgiveness there is already before the forgiveness the real presence of CHRIST in you as a redeeming reality. He is now your LIFE, “for you are dead and your life is now hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3-4)! That Word is proclaimed here: “you are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” It is proclaimed here: “Take and eat. This is my body given for YOU…This is the cup of the New Testament which is shed for YOU…”

Oral Word, water Baptism, Holy Communion, all three; declare God’s action for you and NO ACTION on your part AT ALL.

As Salvation is TOTALLY an act of God in Christ for you so also those who are to declare this WORD are totally chosen by God. There is no FREE WILL here either. Baptism (yours and all others) is the authority to declare this WORD to the world. All baptized are “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and those who are perishing; to one a fragrance from death to death to the other a fragrance from life to life” (II Cor. 2:15-16).

As Jesus said to his disciples so he says to YOU and ME: “You did NOT choose ME, but I chose YOU and appointed YOU that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide… (John 15:16). “I am the vine, YOU are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, FOR APART FROM ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING” (John 15:5)!

SOLA DEO GLORIA!

©Dick Smith

"Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!"

The Reverend Richard Smith preaches at the first night worship service of the 9th Annual Gathering of Augsburg Lutheran Churches, St. Paul's Lutheran Church, El Paso, Texas.

2009-07-26 Sermon on Mark 6:7

The Reverend Timothy J. Swenson preaches at the pre-convention worship service of the 9th Annual Gathering of Augsburg Lutheran Churches, St. Paul's Lutheran Church, El Paso, Texas.
Mark 6:7--"Jesus called the Twelve to himself and then sent them out two-by-two."
(three videos)

Part One



Part Two



Part Three

Christianity Complements Citizenship

Roger Scruton

Forgiveness and Irony

What makes the West strong

Here's an excellent and well-written piece from the City Journal that describes the necessity of the Christian virtues of forgiveness and irony to "fill up" citizenship with meaning. The author contrasts these "virtues" with the culture of repudiation that has driven them from the public square and with existential threat posed by a "terrorism" which has as its target concepts abstracted from its victims.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_1_the-west.html

Here are the essay's concluding paragraph's:

What, then, should our stance be in this existential confrontation? I think we should emphasize the very great virtues and achievements that we have built on our legacy of tolerance and show a willingness to criticize and amend all the vices to which it has also given undue space. We should resurrect Locke’s distinction between liberty and license and make it absolutely clear to our children that liberty is a form of order, not a license for anarchy and self-indulgence. We should cease to mock the things that mattered to our parents and grandparents, and we should be proud of what they achieved. This is not arrogance but a just recognition of our privileges.

We should also drop all the multicultural waffling that has so confused public life in the West and reaffirm the core idea of social membership in the Western tradition, which is the idea of citizenship. By sending out the message that we believe in what we have, are prepared to share it, but are not prepared to see it destroyed, we do the only thing that we can do to defuse the current conflict. Because forgiveness is at the heart of our culture, this message ought surely to be enough, even if we proclaim it in a spirit of irony.